“It’s not as simple as you make it sound, is it, Admiral? Scout ships go out and never come back. The Wasp knows how it’s done. Do you have a Greenfeld scout handy?”
“The princess is right about scouting taking a special effort,” the admiral agreed. “And no, my squadron has no ships with a scout load aboard. We have plenty of problems just now. Discovering what’s out there is way down my priority list.”
“We’ll make a full report on what we find,” Kris was quick to offer. “Do you want to send along an observer?” Kris offered, trying to cover her concern by meeting any of theirs before they voiced them.
“If you don’t mind, I would like to send one of my officers,” the admiral said.
Vicky brightened.
“Not a communications lieutenant. The princess is right, scout ships do disappear. There are a lot of jumps with a simple red check beside them. A ship went there. Nothing came back. Don’t open this Pandora’s box. I’d have a hard time explaining to your father if I let you go chasing off with Kris, and you vanished into one of those red jumps.”
“Her grandfather lets her,” Vicky pointed out.
“You try telling your father that you want to do something just because a Longknife is doing it. See how far it gets you,” the admiral growled.
Kris figured now would be a good time to change the subject.
“Admiral Krätz, I need to ask a favor of you.”
“Another one? You are getting to be very demanding for someone not quite an enemy. What is it that you want from me now? Half my squadron?”
Yes, but Kris hoped to sneak up on that slowly. “I expect that the Wasp will trace that freighter to a pirate base. There is no way the Wasp can take down a full-fledged pirate planet. I figure we’ll be facing ships, shore facilities, armed strong points, farms, the whole nine yards.”
“I agree with you,” the admiral said.
“I would like to send a general order to Patrol Squadron 10 to concentrate at your High St. Pete station and wait for me to get back.”
“Your squadron at my station, huh?” the admiral said, rubbing his chin.
“We’re just half a dozen converted merchant ships,” Kris pointed out.
“A dozen of your tiny fast patrol boats wiped out six super dreadnoughts.” Now he raised an expressive eyebrow.
“I can hardly disagree with that. I commanded those mosquito boats,” Kris reminded them.
“Do you think your Wasp and your converted merchant ships can take down a full-size pirate base?”
Now it was Kris’s turn to chuckle. “I seriously doubt it.”
“So you do want half of my battle squadron,” he said, grinning from ear to ear.
“And all spare Marines that you can throw in,” Kris quipped. No need to hold back. Going with too few could cost them dearly.
“Nothing shy about you,” Vicky said dryly.
“I can’t say the admiral put the idea in my head, but when he laid those cards on the table, you can’t blame a girl for putting them to good use.”
“Who gets the planet?” the admiral demanded.
“You put up most of the troops, you get all of the real estate,” Kris said quickly.
“We are likely to do most of the bleeding,” the admiral told Vicky.
She grinned. “So, the Longknifes provide all the support for Kaskatos. We’ll balance it with Pirates Paradise.”
“Pirates ticket to hell,” Admiral Krätz rechristened it.
That seemed to settle that. The admiral’s barge’s antimatter engines went to full power, and further conversation became impossible anyway.
The noise level didn’t prohibit Kris calling ahead to Captain Drago.
“I expected you to want to get under way in a hurry,” he said. “We have retrieved all our shore parties. The reactors are heating reaction mass. If we’re not under way five minutes after you cross the brow, I’ll apply for the job of skipper on the Peterwald yacht.”
28
The Wasp’s acceleration was pegged at 1.75 gees as it blasted for Jump Point Eva. Kris planned to stay off her feet for the trip. True, normally she could have handled the extra weight with no problem. At least she could have before that last trip to the hospital. Being just off canes, Kris decided not to push her luck.
Besides, she could get a very good picture of what was going on from her Tac Center. From there, she had most everyone she needed within easy reach.
Chief Beni converted the wall to Kris’s right into a map of their present system. The freighter had gone through Jump Point Eva at slightly less than ten thousand klicks an hour. The Wasp had the freighter under observation when she did that, which was good. With all the station’s data files wiped and burned, there was no other equipment to track that ship.
In tables next to the system map was a list of everything Nelly knew about the freighter. She’d done quite a bit of rummaging through the main database dirtside on St. Pete. Nelly had found that that particular ship had made six calls on High St. Pete in the last six months.
And it had a different name and different papers every time it docked.
Of course, it had taken a sleuth of Nelly’s skills to crack that subterfuge. Using some of the routines she’d passed along to her child Mimzy, Penny’s computer, Nelly did some serious digging. Primary records were no help; they insisted the ship had never been to St. Pete’s before. However, Nelly didn’t take that for the answer. Digging deep into repair work done in the last six months showed spare parts ordered for the ship’s reactor. For safety purposes, those orders required that the serial numbers on the huge turbines be listed.
And that connected the Cushion Star to two other ships with the same turbine numbers but different names. Tracing other orders from those two connected Kris’s freighter of interest to three other port calls made by ships with other names but serial numbers or warranties that connected them, one to another to the next.
“Good work, Nelly,” Kris said.
“Can we dig up where this ship of many names went those different times?” Jack asked.
“That gets interesting,” Nelly said.
“Is there anything about that tub that isn’t?” Abby said.
“Three of the times that ship left, it used one of the main jump points out. Adele or Barbie as the Greenfeld folks called them. But twice, the record doesn’t say what jump it used.”
“Bet you it was headed for wherever it’s going this time,” Kris said. She found no one willing to put money down.
“Talk to me, Nelly, about this system we’re headed for,” Kris said.
“I can’t add much more to what Admiral Krätz told us,” Nelly said out loud. “It’s got three jump points, the one we’re coming in from and two out.” KRIS, THERE’S ALSO A FUZZY JUMP POINT, BUT I FIGURE YOU DON’T WANT ME TALKING ABOUT THOSE WHILE COMMANDER FERVENSPIEL IS ON BOARD.
Commander Fervenspiel had come on board only moments before they pulled in the gangplank and sealed locks. He’d arrived with no luggage and joked that he’d need to borrow someone’s toothbrush if this excursion lasted too long.
Kris took it as good provenance that he had come so quickly and with no more backup than the standard Greenfeld Navy commlink on his wrist. She felt safe assuming that what she saw was what he was. Abby vouched for him as an honest sailor and an up-and-comer in the Greenfeld Navy.
It looked to Kris like Admiral Krätz was serious about getting a job done and had sent a serious man to help them. Still, he was from the Peterwald side of humanity, and there were some things the Longknife half didn’t share with that half.